SLEEP: In the arms of Morpheus

I can’t sleep. Haven’t had a good night’s sleep for years. Sure, sometimes, I get 5 or 6 hours of uninterrupted snooze time per night, but I usually get an entr’acte squeezed in for good measure. 

I hear stories of people who are able to fall asleep in planes, in buses, in front of the TV, in vertical form, some even get shot at for dozing off at official events, and I feel such a big surge of jealousy rising up - not for those whose life is in danger but for those who have the ability to snooze off after 60 seconds of what Dr. Andrew Weil calls the 4-7-8 breathing technique.

  

In those 6 years I’ve suffered from insomnia, I have overhauled my diet, included  juices and superfoods in my daily diet, I have become a yogini, read all the “get more sleep NOW” category of self-help books, gone to a sleep specialist, cleaned up my beauty products (if you don’t see the correlation, don’t worry, neither do I!) all in the name of supporting my adrenal glands and increasing my energy levels, enough to go about my daily activities and meet all of life requirements, in other words I have dealt with trying to live with lack of sleep instead of dealing with sleep directly. 

A couple of weeks ago, I finished listening to a 12-day sleep summit organised by Lianne Soller, who brought together top specialists in the fields of holistic health who talked about nutrition, meditation, hypnosis, yoga nidra etc etc. Fantastic summit but alas, has my sleep improved? 

Needless to say, I’m now obsessed with sleep: whether I’ll ever bond with Morpheus again, whether I’m doomed or fated, whether there is still some tip I haven’t tried and I’m not cognizant of. 

Also, I live in sunny Greece which means that, in the warmer months, life happens on balconies, with high decibel conversations and music blaring out from every pore of people’s habitats. To ask people to keep it down is like asking for the sun to stop shining. Also, my neighbours are night owls. They come out after dark; their 11.00 pm is my 5pm!  

But through trial and error, through obsession and indifference, I have realised what works in my favour – besides the standard tips of avoiding caffeine after 12:00pm, having a cool and quiet room, no checking phones/computers/tv just before going to bed. What helps is having a relaxing bedtime routine at least 30 minutes before I lay my head on the pillow. My relaxing routine involves reading so even if I have returned home in the weeny hours of the morning, I read a few pages, just enough to calm body and mind. Ideally, the hours preceding sleep should not be too energetic (activities which are physically and mentally straining) so that my melatonin reaches its sleep level by bedtime.

The other tip is to go to bed only when you are really sleepy, otherwise I just toss and turn endlessly growing ever more annoyed and anxious and delaying sleep further. From personal experience, I’ve noticed that I am sleepy around 22:30 – 23:00 pm.  If I miss that sleep deadline, I am doomed and I have to wait for my next sleep cue!  

We have 90-minute sleep cycles (this cycle repeats itself during the night) and 4 sleep stages, all important for our proper functioning. The biggest repair occurs in stages 2 and 3, that’s when tissue grows and repairs, when energy is restored and hormones are released. I personally do not believe that we absolutely need between 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night. You can cover less ground if you don’t skip on restorative sleep (quality sleep), on stages 2 and 3. Most deep sleep occurs in the first half of the night, and I’ve noticed that the earlier I fall asleep (and by early I mean by 11pm) the better quality of sleep I get. The time I wake up in the morning is not important. The time I fall asleep is what makes the difference in terms of real body and mental restoration!  

Hope I haven’t passed on my obsession onto you!

Love and sweet dreams,

Sophie 

DRINK UP YOUR VEGETABLES AND REV UP YOUR ENERGY

About 5 years ago, after a year suffering from terrible insomnia bouts, I googled therapies and ways to up my energy levels. After many months of terrible sleep patterns, I wasn't functioning at full speed, I was finding it very difficult to concentrate or focus, to carry out my daily tasks and work responsibilities, and quite frankly impossible to take the necessary steps to move along in my life. I was even getting more and more depressed as I was unable to socialise properly because I was unable to stay up late.

I got so obsessed with curing my insomnia (it was also causing devastating effects on my skin!) that I bought and read a number of books on sleep; I even went to see a sleep specialist, and when this didn't help, I went on another google search: how could I function – albeit in a handicapped way – with just those 3 or 4 hours of nightly sleep. How could I go about my day nonetheless.

My second search led me to juicing. So I went out and bought myself a juicer and the rest is history.

Five years later, I may still be sleep deprived but I am still religiously downing my juice every morning. It means that I have to get up earlier every day, as I have to prep, juice, and then clean my juicer, but I have got the whole process down to about 20 minutes. And I still rather wake up earlier and have a juice than stay in bed and miss out on my morning shot of vitamins. It invigorates me and it helps me poo.

I try to stick to this routine no matter the wake up call. It has now become second nature and I miss it if it is not part of my morning routine. I wake up, I pee, I make my bed, and go and make my juice. THEN, I get dressed and eat my breakfast. I only change the order on weekends when I leisurely drink my coffee before I turn to juicing.

My favourite green juice consists of:

Kale

Spinach

Cucumber

Celery

Ginger

Apple or Pear

Ps: I went a bit overboard with the celery in this photo!

It is better to juice organic produce but my purse doesn't allow me buying all my produce organic. My rule of thumb is if I'm going to take the skin off my fruit or vegetable then I don't need to buy organic. I am strict with my greens though. I buy them organic without fail.

Another favourite juice recipe, which I try on days when I think I need to up my vitamin C intake, consists of oranges, carrots and ginger:

Though my love affair with juicing remains intact, I now also make smoothies on days when time is really pressing or when I just want to add more ingredients in the mix (seeds or powders which do not juice).

You would rightly ask, at this point, what is the difference between juicing and blending. Both have health benefits and at the end of the day, do what you prefer. I just prefer juicing.

When we juice our veggies, we are removing the indigestible fibre and making the nutrients more readily available to the body. When you drink your vegetables, your body doesn't have to produce digestive enzymes to break down the food to access the nutrients, so juicing gives your digestive system a rest.

Unlike juices, smoothies consist of the entire fruit or vegetable and thus contain all of the fibre from the vegetables, but it still supports the digestive health. Smoothies are also more filling.

As far as smoothies are concerned, the rule of thumb is to use a green base (spinach/kale/lettuce etc), some fruit (I like banana), some nuts or seeds (I find smoothies are a perfect opportunity to eat chia seeds which are full of good omega-3 fats and proteins), some liquid (I use either almond milk or coconut water), and then a bit of sweetener (honey or dates or agave nectar). I also add some maca powder which balances hormones, or some raw cacao which is packed with antioxidants.

Below two recipes that I often make:

1) Arugula, orange and banana

2) Almond milk, banana, blueberries, maca powder

I keep a very green fridge in order to always have my ingredients at hand. After I've bought all my greens, I wash and dry everything, and put it all in special bags which I annotate. Quite nerdy I'd admit but so convenient when juicing time is here!

Unfortunately, my juicer is not very good so a great deal of produce goes to waste. I put it through the feed chute twice in order to yield as much juice as I can. But still, some of it goes to waste.

My dream is to one day be in the position to buy a great centrifugal juicer and the crème de la crème of blenders: the Vitamix blender. Only caveat: it costs around 600 euros! Maybe one day...

 

Thriving the Huffington way

Last week, I attended a talk on a book I read a few months ago: “Thrive: the third metric to redefining success and creating a happier life” by Arianna Huffington. As the title implies, the book is about finding an offset to overwhelm, overwork, and our overflowing to-do list. Easier said than done!

How do you thrive? Arianna says by focusing on four little areas: well-being, wisdom, wonder, and giving. She takes us through each area, bulletproofing her facts with statistics, and punctuating her words with true stories of companies which have offered their workforce a third metric (a nap room, a no-mobile phone policy after hours, strict working hours) which resulted in an increase in productivity among their employees. I can’t see how this can be translated in a Greek workplace where we don’t even get a lunch break!

Furthermore, how can you incorporate a third metric to your daily routine when you are struggling to make ends meet, in the case of a single mother who is trying, at the end of each day, to wrap up all the daily requirements of rearing offsprings?

With tresses the perfect hue of autumnal auburn, and a face perfectly painted to match her dress and expensive adornments, Arianna insisted that in such dire times, when the wear and tear of daily life bears heavily on your shoulders, that is when we have to turn to the Stoics idea of happiness and turn inward. You need to make recharging and unplugging a priority. Prioritise inward time, sleep, silence, breaks, and master the art of giving.

I am a single woman living on my own and I have difficulty focusing on well-being, wisdom, wonder and giving! I am sleep deprived, feel exhausted, my adrenals are fatigued, my energy levels have been sucked dry. Could I/ should I/ must I employ the Stoics idea of happiness? I hear a resounding yes. Yes but...

My aim is to leave work on time and keep all work-related worries strictly confined to that timeframe, my goal is to not take things personally, and instead push myself to go out to meet friends and watch art, meditate for a few minutes a day, breathe deeper down the belly, eat or drink my veggies, watch happy movies, in other words take control of my inner world. Add some good, remove some bad.

Huffington also talked about turning to entrepreneurship as a means to allay the bad economic situation, spur growth and create jobs.

Do you have a product or service to offer? Then create it and fashion it in a way that will reach an audience, generate revenue for you and the wider world. This part of the conversation found fertile ground within the auditorium which was crowded with self-employed individuals trying to sell their ideas and attempting to open the floodgates of cash flow. Arianna referred all these people to her team working at the freshly established Huffpost Greece, putting her international media staff and forum to the service of these would-be entrepreneurs in an effort to help publicise their ideas and concretise their dreams. I pitied her team who was suddenly bombarded from all sides! I bet they will go looking for their third metric soon….

Madame Huffington ingrains her speech with humour, enrapturing her audience and finally sending us all off convinced of the emergency to live the good life.